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MM Retro-Write-Up: 1970 Pontiac GTO
In my last Retro-write-up, I covered the big 1968 Old Delmont that me and my best friend, in high school (it belonged to his Dad) had fun with, although some of our other friends thought it was a boring, Old-Person's car...unlike us, they weren't fans of big full-size American upmarket/luxury cars. In this one, I will cover the 1970 Pontiac GTO that his same family, just by sheer luck of the draw, was to win in a raffle-contest/give-away that the local Pontiac dealer (which was literally just down the street from them) gave away.
The GTO, of course, traces itself to the early 1960s, when Pontiac General Manager John De Lorean (later to own his own sports-car company) got the idea of stuffing a big full-size Pontiac V8 engine into the compact Tempest/LeMans platform, and making some adjustments to the underpinnings and brakes to compensate. GM's senior management said no, nixed the idea, said they didn't think it would work, and their own hard-line policy, unlike that at Ford and Chrysler, was not to provide factory-backing for either NASCAR events or to encourage street-racing. Well, De Lorean was convinced it would indeed work, and ordered the program to proceed in secret. The GTO, like the original Mustang, was a huge success, even had a song written about it, and De Lorean's bosses forgave his disobedience (and didn't fire him) when they saw the money that GM was making off this car.
The concept of American muscle-cars did not actually start with the GTO, although automotive historians disagree where it actually started. There was the previous Chrysler Hemi 300 of 1955, the Oldsmobile Rocket-V8s of the late 1940s and early 50s, and, going back far enough, even the Ford Flathead-V8 of 1932, which was popular with criminals and bootleggers of the period because it made it easier for them to outrun cops. But all agree that the GTO (or "Goat", as its nickname) started the compact/mid-sized Muscle-Car craze of the 1960s.
Anyhow, back to my friend's 1970. The GTO/LeMans/Tempest, along with the rest of GM's mid-sized cars, was redesigned for 1968, and was, IMO, the best-looking generation of all, particularly in 1970 (the year, incidentally, that me and him both graduated from high school) when the "Endura" all-vinyl/rubber front end was added. That Endura front-end was unique, with, of course, the classic Pontiac split-grille, and there was nothing else on the market quite like it. Inside, Pontiac used a unique knitted-vinyl for the seat called "Morrokide"....which imitated cloth, but was a lot easier to clean. The former 389-cubic-inch V8 was traded for a 400 c.i. V8 of 350 HP in base form...still uniquely Pontiac power-plants, as GM had not yet completely standardized their powertrains. My friend's coupe (convertibles were also offered) was done in a mint-metallic light green, with a dark green vinyl interior and nice realistic wood-tone on the dash. It had the Heavy-Duty 3-speed Turbo Hydra-Matic transmission, with a console and floor-shifter. It was not the baddest or meanest-looking GTO by a long shot....that honor was given to the later-1970 455 c.i. GTO/Judge versions with their bright orange paint and fire-flame decals on the fenders). But it was a nice, sharp-looking machine, with good attention to detail, and extremely-well-assembled for the period, especially compared to the junk-fit-and finish that we saw from Dodge and Plymouth competitors. I always said that you could tell a GM car, back then, and the famous Body by Fisher, just from the solid-thunk that the doors made when closing....Fords and Mercurys tended to make a clicking sound when the doors shut, and the Chrysler products just clunked and rattled.
Me and my friend had a lot of fun in the GTO, just has we had previously had in the big Olds Delmont, and, of course, it didn't get the Old-Man comments from our other friends that the Olds did. As far as I was concerned, I just shrugged those comments off as ignorance.....I never did, and still don't believe in automotive stereotypes, though is its true that certain groups of people sometimes are attracted to certain vehicles.....that, I won't deny.
Unfortunately, the GTO was destined to get my friend into some trouble. He was, in general, a very careful driver, and never, to my knowledge, had a chargeable accident. But he did punch it once or twice. The first time was on a clear, almost-no-traffic 4-lane road with a median, having it out, from a rolling low-speed, with a classmate's purple 1970 Dodge Challenger with a far bigger 440 Six-Pack engine and a Hurst trigger-handle 4-on-the floor. Needless to say, the Challenger blew his doors off, but nobody got any tickets....and the speed wasn't really that excessive. The second time, though, he was not so fortunate....my younger brother was in the back seat, with me up front riding Shotgun, and, to show off a little for my brother, my friend, from low speed, punched it moderately (again, with clear traffic and minimal hazards), and let off the gas a few seconds later. Well, there was a cop sitting on a side street, and he pulled us over. He said he clocked us at close to 60, on a road with a 35-MPH limit, which is a serious offense in Virginia...20 MPH or more over the limit is a Reckless Driving charge. I was watching the speedometer, and I disagreed...I said closer to 50. I don't remember all the details of the Traffic-Court-appearance (or if I testified or not), but I don't recall my friend losing his license....his Better-Than-Average driving record, compared to many teens and young adults, probably worked in his favor, though he felt terrible after the event and told me (not seriously, of course) that he wanted to drive the darn thing off a cliff. I told him the same thing, however, that I still tell people today, half-a century later....I believe every new driver can make one serious mistake (particularly if no one else gets hurt or killed), but that he or she learn from it...which he did, just as I learned from the one mistake I made (I'll cover that in another thread).
And, of course, the GTO was no economy car. In most driving, like most muscle cars of the period, it went through high-priced 100-Octane-leaded gas at the rate of about 8 to 15 MPG....more, of course, with easy-cruising on the highway, and less at stoplight contests. So, later in 1970, right before graduation, my friend's folks bought him a bare-bones entrty-level AMC Hornet compact, which lacked almost any creature-comforts, and was a handful to drive with its ultra-slow steering and three-on-the three (column) manual transmission. I'll cover that car in an upcoming thread....it was similar in some ways to the Plymouth Valiant my dad was driving as an everyday-commuter.
Just exactly how long the family kept the GTO, and what became of it, I don't remember, though I can recall still seeing it in the late 70s, with fading light-green paint and cracks/dryness in the Endure rubber front-end. By then, of course, I had left my parent's house and moved away (not very far), and my friend had gotten married (then divorced and married again), and was also living a few miles away...he eventually became a long-distance semi-truck driver, and I saw or heard little of him after that.
And, as Always, Happy Car-Memories
MM
In my last Retro-write-up, I covered the big 1968 Old Delmont that me and my best friend, in high school (it belonged to his Dad) had fun with, although some of our other friends thought it was a boring, Old-Person's car...unlike us, they weren't fans of big full-size American upmarket/luxury cars. In this one, I will cover the 1970 Pontiac GTO that his same family, just by sheer luck of the draw, was to win in a raffle-contest/give-away that the local Pontiac dealer (which was literally just down the street from them) gave away.
The GTO, of course, traces itself to the early 1960s, when Pontiac General Manager John De Lorean (later to own his own sports-car company) got the idea of stuffing a big full-size Pontiac V8 engine into the compact Tempest/LeMans platform, and making some adjustments to the underpinnings and brakes to compensate. GM's senior management said no, nixed the idea, said they didn't think it would work, and their own hard-line policy, unlike that at Ford and Chrysler, was not to provide factory-backing for either NASCAR events or to encourage street-racing. Well, De Lorean was convinced it would indeed work, and ordered the program to proceed in secret. The GTO, like the original Mustang, was a huge success, even had a song written about it, and De Lorean's bosses forgave his disobedience (and didn't fire him) when they saw the money that GM was making off this car.
The concept of American muscle-cars did not actually start with the GTO, although automotive historians disagree where it actually started. There was the previous Chrysler Hemi 300 of 1955, the Oldsmobile Rocket-V8s of the late 1940s and early 50s, and, going back far enough, even the Ford Flathead-V8 of 1932, which was popular with criminals and bootleggers of the period because it made it easier for them to outrun cops. But all agree that the GTO (or "Goat", as its nickname) started the compact/mid-sized Muscle-Car craze of the 1960s.
Anyhow, back to my friend's 1970. The GTO/LeMans/Tempest, along with the rest of GM's mid-sized cars, was redesigned for 1968, and was, IMO, the best-looking generation of all, particularly in 1970 (the year, incidentally, that me and him both graduated from high school) when the "Endura" all-vinyl/rubber front end was added. That Endura front-end was unique, with, of course, the classic Pontiac split-grille, and there was nothing else on the market quite like it. Inside, Pontiac used a unique knitted-vinyl for the seat called "Morrokide"....which imitated cloth, but was a lot easier to clean. The former 389-cubic-inch V8 was traded for a 400 c.i. V8 of 350 HP in base form...still uniquely Pontiac power-plants, as GM had not yet completely standardized their powertrains. My friend's coupe (convertibles were also offered) was done in a mint-metallic light green, with a dark green vinyl interior and nice realistic wood-tone on the dash. It had the Heavy-Duty 3-speed Turbo Hydra-Matic transmission, with a console and floor-shifter. It was not the baddest or meanest-looking GTO by a long shot....that honor was given to the later-1970 455 c.i. GTO/Judge versions with their bright orange paint and fire-flame decals on the fenders). But it was a nice, sharp-looking machine, with good attention to detail, and extremely-well-assembled for the period, especially compared to the junk-fit-and finish that we saw from Dodge and Plymouth competitors. I always said that you could tell a GM car, back then, and the famous Body by Fisher, just from the solid-thunk that the doors made when closing....Fords and Mercurys tended to make a clicking sound when the doors shut, and the Chrysler products just clunked and rattled.
Me and my friend had a lot of fun in the GTO, just has we had previously had in the big Olds Delmont, and, of course, it didn't get the Old-Man comments from our other friends that the Olds did. As far as I was concerned, I just shrugged those comments off as ignorance.....I never did, and still don't believe in automotive stereotypes, though is its true that certain groups of people sometimes are attracted to certain vehicles.....that, I won't deny.
Unfortunately, the GTO was destined to get my friend into some trouble. He was, in general, a very careful driver, and never, to my knowledge, had a chargeable accident. But he did punch it once or twice. The first time was on a clear, almost-no-traffic 4-lane road with a median, having it out, from a rolling low-speed, with a classmate's purple 1970 Dodge Challenger with a far bigger 440 Six-Pack engine and a Hurst trigger-handle 4-on-the floor. Needless to say, the Challenger blew his doors off, but nobody got any tickets....and the speed wasn't really that excessive. The second time, though, he was not so fortunate....my younger brother was in the back seat, with me up front riding Shotgun, and, to show off a little for my brother, my friend, from low speed, punched it moderately (again, with clear traffic and minimal hazards), and let off the gas a few seconds later. Well, there was a cop sitting on a side street, and he pulled us over. He said he clocked us at close to 60, on a road with a 35-MPH limit, which is a serious offense in Virginia...20 MPH or more over the limit is a Reckless Driving charge. I was watching the speedometer, and I disagreed...I said closer to 50. I don't remember all the details of the Traffic-Court-appearance (or if I testified or not), but I don't recall my friend losing his license....his Better-Than-Average driving record, compared to many teens and young adults, probably worked in his favor, though he felt terrible after the event and told me (not seriously, of course) that he wanted to drive the darn thing off a cliff. I told him the same thing, however, that I still tell people today, half-a century later....I believe every new driver can make one serious mistake (particularly if no one else gets hurt or killed), but that he or she learn from it...which he did, just as I learned from the one mistake I made (I'll cover that in another thread).
And, of course, the GTO was no economy car. In most driving, like most muscle cars of the period, it went through high-priced 100-Octane-leaded gas at the rate of about 8 to 15 MPG....more, of course, with easy-cruising on the highway, and less at stoplight contests. So, later in 1970, right before graduation, my friend's folks bought him a bare-bones entrty-level AMC Hornet compact, which lacked almost any creature-comforts, and was a handful to drive with its ultra-slow steering and three-on-the three (column) manual transmission. I'll cover that car in an upcoming thread....it was similar in some ways to the Plymouth Valiant my dad was driving as an everyday-commuter.
Just exactly how long the family kept the GTO, and what became of it, I don't remember, though I can recall still seeing it in the late 70s, with fading light-green paint and cracks/dryness in the Endure rubber front-end. By then, of course, I had left my parent's house and moved away (not very far), and my friend had gotten married (then divorced and married again), and was also living a few miles away...he eventually became a long-distance semi-truck driver, and I saw or heard little of him after that.
And, as Always, Happy Car-Memories
MM